Unspoken Cinema

The North (2025/Bart Schrijver/Netherlands) The highlands, right in between the clouds and the mountains. Two friends, and solitude all along the way… There was only one goal: reaching the northernmost cape of Scotland from Glasgow, 600 km on foot through the rough terrain, barren or wet wilderness, during extreme atmospheric conditions. Was it a dare, a bucket list or a dream? Chris (Bart Harder) and Lluis (Carles Pulido), former roommates, decided to set apart 30 days from their busy lives and accomplish this adventure together. We don’t know who they are, where they come from, what they want to become… but we’ll discover it, along with them, on the way to Cape Wrath. After a blind phone conversation from the past (as if recorded on an answering machine) of two students planning a farewell party, like a usual “Tuesday night” of drinking at the pub, the film cleverly flashes forward right away to a decade later. All we know about them through this phone call overture is that they use...

  An Elephant Sitting Still - a Single Review (YouTube) 14'10" (Kinotherapy Movies) 27 dec 2024 "Hu Bo's only feature, "An Elephant Sitting Still" quickly resonated with film lovers worldwide and found it's place in the cinematic canon. This 4 hour intimate excursion through pain and suffering is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen and is an unequivocal masterpiece. Immersive cinematography and Buddhist philosophy elevate this film to a transcendent level along the ranks of Tarkovsky, Bergman, Fellini, Malick, Tarr, or Weerasethakul. It is undeniably heart-wrenching and gloomy, yet it is rewarding, honest, and an experience that will long escape your mind."

De Les Statues Meurent aussi (1953) à Dahomey (2024) À soixante-dix ans d'intervalle, deux documentaires interrogent les rapports entre la France et la culture africaine à travers le prisme de la colonisation. Cette analyse compare Les Statues meurent aussi  (1953) de Chris Marker et Alain Resnais, et Dahomey (2024) de Mati Diop, ce dernier s'inscrivant explicitement dans la lignée du premier, qualifié par Diop de "manifeste politique en même temps qu'un film d'art." Nous verrons comment ces deux essais filmiques se rapprochent et comment ils diffèrent, appartenant à deux générations différentes de l'histoire du cinéma. À la fin du XIXe siècle (1892), l'empire colonial français accumule près de 7000 objets provenant d'Afrique (et d'Océanie aussi) dans ses musées métropolitains, fruits de pillages masqués sous l'apparence de "cadeaux" dans un contexte de domination coloniale. Si  Les Statues meurent aussi  émerge dans une périod...

Many texts collected in English and Dutch on the cinema of Weerasethakul at Sabzian... For him, cinema is the artform that can address the mysteries of time and that creates a shared body of memories. Cinema is a time machine to him, in part technical, partly magical. “I am interested in exploring the innards of this time machine. There might be some mysterious forces waiting to be revealed just as certain things that used to be called black magic have been shown to be scientific facts. For me, filmmaking remains a source all of whose energy we haven’t properly utilized. In the same way that we have not thoroughly explained the inner workings of the mind.”   Transmigrating Souls: The Cinema of Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL (Sabzian)

  PETER BRADSHOW reviews EUREKA (YouTube) 4'37" Peter Bradshaw (17 Jan 2024)

  It's by the sound, from the street, of a traditional twig broom brushing away leaves from the pavement at dawn that this man awakens. He methodically folds back his futon and duvet in his neat tatami room, gently puts away the book he abandonned last night next to his reading glasses... He walks downstairs to brush his teeth and climbs back upstairs with a water sprayer to water his plants in the adjacent room bathed in a sepia shade. He puts on his work overalls with "Tokyo Toilets" printed on the back. Without a word uttered so far, the personality of the character is established with a natural flow and a few hints...  He proceeds down the stairs where he picks up one by one the objects carefully placed on a shelf. First his mobile phone after disconnecting it from an all-night charge. 2 sets of keys he pockets promptly. Some change. Only his watch remains on the shelf when he closed the door. The first thing he looks at when opening the entrance door is the sky. Next...

Menus-Plaisirs : Les Troisgros (2023) Frederick WISEMAN What you ought to know prior to watching this film The less information about this film, the more surprises the slow-burn discovery will get you, each step of the way. The faces of these chefs might not be familiar at first, but they’ll gradually grow on you… until you’re part of the family by the end. You might want to save a good moment of your time to complete this four-hour long observational documentary, as there is no built-in intermission. Like for all Wiseman’s recent films, this film spends longer than usual to foster acquaintance with the universe he’s studying. He observes carefully, patiently, the institutions of society and culture, one at the time, with a no-nonsense title naming its subject with exactitude. What you won’t see in this film: emotional music score, voiceover commentary, stars, competition, prices, money, waiting line, shouting orders, gratuitous insults, tears of despair or joy, food reviews, Instagra...

  In January, I asked GPT 3.5 about Contemplative Cinema . Now GPT 4, who is smarter than GPT 3.5 (and not as smart as GPT5, rumored to be released on december 2023), is embedded with Bing (in the web browser Edge), and answers any prompts after consulting a Bing web search. Today, I'll ask GPT 4 the same questions and compare the answers... Illustration generated by an AI (Adobe Express), prompt: "image of Contemplative Cinema" Prompt: What is the definition of Contemplative Cinema? GPT4 : "Contemplative Cinema, also known as Slow Cinema, is a genre of art cinema film-making that emphasizes long takes and is typically characterized by a style that is minimalist, observational, and with little or no narrative. In these films, there may be very little action or events. Car chases, combat scenes, violence, gunshots are either anecdotal or non-existent. Yet, it’s impossible to look away. These films take their time to establish the plot. Some have very few dialogues, ot...

  Last Days - El slow cinema de los últimos días de Kurt Cobain (YouTube) 1'12" Alina Morales (ESPAÑOL) 29 sept 2023

Los Bastardos Par HARRYTUTTLE Au fond d'un canal de crue à sec, postée dans l'axe au milieu des larges berges de béton inclinées, la caméra attend l'arrivée des deux protagonistes encore confondus avec le point de fuite. En temps réel l'aube blanchit sur la zone périurbaine de Los Angeles. Une entrée en matière depuis les égouts. Une patiente "traversée du désert" métaphorique du pénible franchissement de la frontière hautement gardée entre le Mexique et les États-Unis. Les silhouettes minuscules, impersonnelles, méconnaissables s'approchent lentement, précédées de nos préjugés hâtifs. Finalement, nous distinguons à l'écran deux jeunes Mexicains qui vont escalader le parapet après un panoramique sur la gauche et disparaître de dos dans la ville qu'il ne nous est pas donné de voir. Amat Escalante montre la grande mégapole californienne du point de vue des émigrés clandestins, et non la carte postale des séries télé. On n'en voit que des car...